Monday, January 31, 2011

These two animals thought it would be a good time to beat up gay men in the Village. And these two animals no doubt see themselves as the good guys.

You are not. More in the category of violent criminals.

They are both over 21 as well, and can be charged as adults (technically they are, if not mentally). Should have got your psychopathic antisocial behaviour over with when you were juveniles.

Oh well, the boys in jail always welcome fresh meat.

Toronto Police are calling a recent late-night assault in the Gay Village a hate crime, stoking concerns the neighbourhood is no longer safe.

Ryan Lester, 30, was kicked in the face and called “faggot” while getting a post-bar snack at Mehran Restaurant on Church St. early Saturday Jan. 22. His 24-year-old brother, Ben, suffered has deep bruises on his back and had to go to the dentist to repair a broken molar.

The beating comes on the heels of allegations that local students have been hurling slushies, ice and homophobic slurs at residents in the Gay Village.

Lester said he used to have a sense of security in the Gay Village but the recent incidents have him on edge.

“I thought of it as an inherently safe space. If you have a problem with gay people, you just don’t go there,” Lester said.

Eoin McManus, 21, and Benjamin McCall, 21, both of Toronto, have each been charged with two counts of assault and one count of mischief after breaking the restaurant’s front window.

Best way the TTC can guantee the public takes more photos is by asking that they don't...

The Toronto Transit Commission wants you to quit playing paparazzi with its employees.

The please-don’t-play-gotcha request comes after at least three TTC drivers were caught on camera this week by shocked passengers who observed them texting or chatting on cellphones while operating buses.

“We ask that people not do that,” TTC spokesman Brad Ross said Friday. “We don’t require photographic evidence to discipline drivers. Cameras in the face of operators can escalate a situation that doesn’t need to be escalated.”

Instead of snapping photos, “we ask that they call us, report the bus and route number and date and time of the occurrence,” Ross said.

The TTC has disciplined employees for texting while driving before without pictures. Cellphone records, for example, can be used in internal investigations.

Governor John Kasich's first few weeks have been shocking in their reckless honesty. Governor Kasich doesn't split words and doesn't hold back. He's proud of his style. He tells you how he really feels.

That's what's so sad about this.

ONN's Jim Heath reports on a shocking exchange between Senator Nina Turner (who is a member of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus) and the Governor. When Turner questions the Governor (and the Governor's staff confirms this), Kasich shot back "I don't need your people!"

Republican respect for life stops the moment the child is born, then it's every man for himself.

Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law.

For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

Rule 1, allies can never ever be dictators, that honour is reserved for enemies...or those just in the way.

Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”

Canadian lottery officials say they’ve finally awarded to the correct people a 2003 multimillion-dollar jackpot that authorities say was fraudulently claimed by a lottery retailer’s relative.

Seven men who played Canada’s Super 7 lottery together in December 2003 were awarded a $12.5 million jackpot plus $2.35 million in interest after being declared the rightful winners, the Toronto Star reported. Each will receive $2.1 million.

The war of words between Glee's creator Ryan Murphy and Kings of Leon goes there...via that playground of the childish, Twitter.

"Dear Ryan Murphy, let it go. See a therapist, get a manicure, buy a new bra. Zip your lip and focus on educating 7yr olds how to say fuck."..

...Realizing how his comments could be seen, Followill later tweeted: "I'm sorry 4 anyone that misconstrued my comments as homophobic or misogynistic. I'm so not that kind of person. I really do apologize."

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Rather than face the fact some artists don't want to be involved with TV's soft core autotuned nightmare Glee, Ryan Murphy lashes out.

"Fuck you, Kings of Leon," Murphy relayed via the magazine. "They're self-centered assholes, and they missed the big picture. They missed that a 7-year-old kid can see someone close to their age singing a Kings of Leon song, which will maybe make them want to join a glee club or pick up a musical instrument. It's like, OK, hate on arts education. You can make fun of Glee all you want, but at its heart, what we really do is turn kids on to music."

FYI Mr Murphy, Glee isn't really that good, and the "music" it produces is awful in the extreme. That 7 year old, by not hearing the wretched versions of songs you mangle, may have actually had their appreciation of music enhanced.

Toronto is Canada’s largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. Toronto’s government is dedicated to delivering customer service excellence, creating a transparent and accountable government, reducing the size and cost of government and building a transportation city. For information on non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can dial 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

These people won't stop until everyone who isn't like them is punished and made to feel worthless.

A constitutional amendment that would mandate that marriage between one man and one woman is the only legal union that is valid or recognized in the state was introduced Wednesday in the Iowa House, marking the beginning of what promises to be one of the most contentious debates of the 2011 legislative session.

Fifty-six of the GOP’s 60-member majority signed on as co-sponsors to House Joint Resolution 6. Four Republican lawmakers — Peter Cownie, Steven Lukan, Scott Raecker and David Tjepkes — and all 40 Democrats refused to sign on as co-sponsors. The legislation goes beyond just banning same-sex marriage. It would also ban civil unions, domestic partnerships and any other legal recognition of same-sex couples.

It didn’t take long, just months in fact. In that short time, Toronto has gone from the self-proclaimed “greenest city in North America” to just another environmental laggard.

The city’s green roof requirements for industrial buildings, which were to have taken effect Jan. 31, now seem likely to be delayed more than a year. According to a staff report, the extra time is needed to allow for “further consultation with industry stakeholders.”

A polite word for this is bunk. It is 100 percent pure nonsense of the most abjectly self-serving, short-sighted and ultimately self-destructive sort.

Of course, it will resonate with Toronto’s new Family Compact, Rob and Doug Ford, for whom business can do no wrong.

Naturally, business and the development industry hate the bylaw; from their point of view, it means they must spend more. The fact it is the right thing to do counts for little in their eyes save, perhaps, as an opportunity for good PR. Sadly, this is normal corporate behaviour, irresponsible, indifferent, some would argue, sociopathic, in its disregard for anything beyond its own immediate needs.

Monday, January 24, 2011

What these geniuses* don't realize that by emulating Glee, they are coming across as gayer than Elton John.

Just sayin'

The principal of Jarvis Collegiate Institute said allegations that students are hurling slushies, shoes and homophobic slurs at residents of the Gay Village are being “treated very seriously.”

However, Enza Anderson, who has been harassed in the past, called the students “teens of terror” and has organized a public meeting to discuss what she describes as homophobia in the community after a recent attack.

Paul Winsor, a local florist, was singled out by a group of about 12 students who shouted “faggot” and soaked him with two frozen beverages last Monday.

The 49-year-old narrowly dodged an airborne chunk of ice as he chased the teens before they ducked into the school at Jarvis and Wellesley Sts.

“A slushie drink is one thing — it stains your clothes and hurts your pride — but when it escalates to chunks of ice, that’s dangerous,” he said.

The “slushie facial” is a popular form of bullying on the musical TV series Glee. Winsor is relieved the frozen Coke beverages missed his face, but his red Canada goose coat was soaked.

* an apology to the real geniuses out there, as we all know homophobia demands zero brain power.

Nick Kouvalis, the man who is credited as an architect of Mayor Rob Ford’s election victory, will be stepping down as his chief of staff.

Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, said the deal has always been for Mr. Kouvalis to transition out of a demanding role that has taken him away from a family that lives in Windsor. He said Mr. Kouvalis, who was a Ford campaign manager, is “loyal” to the Fords, and will continue to work closely with them as a senior advisor.

“He’s not leaving, he’s moving to a different area not directly related with the administration,” said Councillor Ford. “He will be working on finishing the TTC file, and he’s going to start working on outsourcing the garbage.”

Wait for it, the lamest excuse in politics...

Mr. Ford said spending more time with family was a driving force behind the decision.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Alabama Republican Gov. Robert Bentley is kicking off his first term in office with a bit of controversy, telling a church audience Monday that he only considers Christians to be his "brothers and sisters."

"Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters," he told parishioners at a Baptist church in Montgomery Monday shortly after being sworn in. "So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Brave Ms. DiManno spends the whole article reassuring us that we in Toronto are not cold hearted bastards...when the evidence provided in said piece gives ample proof otherwise.

DiManno: Freezing death not a sign we’re cold-hearted.

What happened in a Scarborough neighbourhood Monday morning is tragic. Yet events are not entirely as damning of Toronto as they appeared when news first broke that a woman who suffered from dementia had wandered from her nearby home and come to such a sad end only a block away.

We are not quite that cold-hearted a city. But we are careless and incurious.

Yeah whatever. Just keep repeating "We're world class!" until you feel better.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Mayor Rob Ford is getting top grades for his disciplined election campaign from a public relations group.

"While some didn't like what he had to say; the clear, consistent and passionate way he said it brought his supporters together," said Carrie MacAfee, president of the International Association of Business Communicators*, Toronto chapter, said.

"Though it was not perfect, his campaign showed the power of strong communications."

Using very small words, with little meaning. This is what passes as "strong communications" among those who claim they're in the know these days.

To them, a Twitter post is a long exhausting read...

* A worldwide learning community for professionals committed to improving the effectiveness of organizations through strategic communication. Translation: keep it simple and keep it dumb.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Saturday, January 15, 2011

An extensive study of tree growth rings says there could be a link between the rise and fall of past civilisations and sudden shifts in Europe's climate.

A team of researchers based their findings on data from 9,000 wooden artifacts from the past 2,500 years.

They found that periods of warm, wet summers coincided with prosperity, while political turmoil occurred during times of climate instability.

The findings have been published online by the journal Science.

"Looking back on 2,500 years, there are examples where climate change impacted human history," co-author Ulf Buntgen, a paleoclimatologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape, told the Science website.

* With a name like that it's a wonder he survived grade school. Mr. Priebus is the new head of the Republican National Committee, replacing Michael Steele. Mr. Priebus does look the part, appearing like the poster child for pasty white conservatives everywhere.

CRTC concerns with Rogers and its response to net neutrality complaints escalated this week when the Commission sent a letter to the company advising that it has received a growing number of complaints and that its public disclosures have not been compliant with CRTC Internet traffic management policy requirements. The case began last fall when the CRTC received a complaint over changes to Rogers' practices that affected downstream P2P traffic.

Rogers ultimately admitted the practice and promised to update its disclosure policies. Despite those promises, the CRTC found that the disclosures still only focus on the impact of its practices on uploading. The Commission told Rogers yesterday that:

Staff consider that in order to comply with TRP 2009-657, the discussion in the page titled Legal Disclaimer and the detailed discussion available on the network management policy web page should indicate that there are circumstances whereby the Rogers ITMP will also affect download speeds available to subscribers. Further, the detailed discussion on the network management policy page should clearly indicate which download applications might be affected in these circumstances and to what degree (i.e., the impact on download speeds should be indicated).

The letter added that it has received additional complaints about the practices and wants a response from Rogers by February 14, 2011 on "whether and how Rogers intends to modify its ITMP disclosures in compliance with TRP 2009-657."

Although the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is best remembered by the American public for fighting against racial discrimination, he was also an outspoken opponent of war and violence, most notably of the war in Vietnam. A top Obama administration official at the Department of Defense, however, argued Thursday that if King were alive, he would support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At a Pentagon commemoration of King's accomplishments, DOD General Counsel Jeh Johnson said that today's wars are in line with the reverend's teachings.

"I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation's military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack," Johnson said. "Every day, our servicemen and women practice the dangerousness -- the dangerous unselfishness Dr. King preached on April 3, 1968."

Quebec's Human Rights Tribunal has awarded $12,000 in damages to a gay couple in Pointe-Claire because of the homophobia they endured from a neighbour.

Gordon Lusk was ordered to pay the money to his neighbours, Theo Wouters and Roger Thibeault, after the tribunal found that Lusk subjected them to homophobic slurs, invitations to fight and death threats.

When Wouters and Thibeault would drive down the street, Lusk's children would also shout homophobic remarks at them, the tribunal said.

Nice. Make sure the kids are fucked up at a young age too. Well done Mr. Lusk.

The self righteous should stay out of the medical profession. They spend more time making sure their precious little feeling aren't damaged than actually helping the sick.

It does provide one with a golden opportunity to pass judgement over the sinners though.

Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest has filed a letter of complaint with the Idaho Board of Pharmacy regarding the actions of a Nampa pharmacist.

Idaho Board of Pharmacy Executive Director Mark Johnston confirmed that the board received the complaint alleging that on Nov. 6 a Walgreens pharmacist refused to fill a prescription ordered by one of Planned Parenthood's Boise-based nurse practitioners. The prescription was for a Planned Parenthood patient for Methergine, a medicine used to prevent or control bleeding of the uterus following childbirth or an abortion.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The province's police watchdog is being given new photos of the arrest of Dorian Barton, who says police assaulted him during the G20 weekend, breaking his right arm and giving him a black eye.

The Special Investigations Unit looked into Barton's case, along with five others, but concluded in November there wasn't enough evidence to lay charges in any of them.

“Mr. Barton could not identify the officers involved in his arrest or fully explain how the injury occurred; nor was the remainder of the evidence capable of resolving these questions,” director Ian Scott said of the case at the time.

Now, new photos of Barton's arrest are surfacing. Just before Christmas, the 29-year-old received a phone call from hospital employee Andrew Wallace, who recognized him after reading about him in the Toronto Star. Wallace took photos of Barton's takedown at Queen's Park, the designated protest zone during the G20.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Even with it being the law of the land, some will go out of their way to punish those nasty gays.

Saskatchewan's highest court has ruled that marriage commissioners who are public servants cannot refuse to marry same-sex couples.

The decision by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal rejects two proposals from the provincial government that would allow some or all marriage commissioners to refuse to perform a service involving gay or lesbian partners if it offended their religious beliefs.

The government proposed that marriage commissioners who were employed before the law changed in 2004 could refuse to perform the services. It also proposed a second option where all marriage commissioners could refuse.

As I've long suspected, Toronto actually enjoys having their city as ugly as it is...and Mr. Selley continues to be a ninny.

One of my favourite buildings in Toronto is the Will Alsop’s Sharp Centre for Design — OCAD’s box on pencil-stilts — simply because it seems to mock Toronto’s general staidness, almost to revel in the negative reactions it provokes.

Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to live in a more beautiful Toronto. But this has never been a beautiful city, or a grand city. Our older extant buildings tend, first and foremost, to be functional. And our functional new buildings tend to be hideous...

...But the vast majority of us have higher, crushingly mundane priorities, than pretty buildings. In part, that’s why Toronto works as well as it does.

A new University of Florida study following the evolution of lice shows modern humans started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago, a technology which enabled them to successfully migrate out of Africa.

Principal investigator David Reed, associate curator of mammals at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, studies lice in modern humans to better understand human evolution and migration patterns. His latest five-year study used DNA sequencing to calculate when clothing lice first began to diverge genetically from human head lice.

Surfing and downloading from the internet is about to get more expensive for many Canadians as internet companies Shaw and Primus have announced plans to impose new fees and caps on internet usage.

Over the past year, the CRTC, Canada's communication regulator, let Bell and Rogers start charging extra for customers who download a lot of data. The growing demand for live-streaming and online movies gobbles up huge chunks of bandwidth on the World Wide Web.

Primus and Shaw have said they will begin passing on higher fees to their customers beginning Feb. 1. Primus, for example, rents bandwidth on Bell's networks and said Bell is inflating the costs for everyone, including them.

Friday, January 07, 2011

Foreign interference continues to pose an ongoing threat to Canada's sovereignty and national security, the head of CSIS says in a confidential report.

"These clandestine efforts by foreign governments to influence our officials, policies and communities have the potential to undermine our ability to make independent decisions in Canada's national interests," CSIS director Richard Fadden wrote in a report to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Fadden also writes in the heavily censored report, obtained by The Canadian Press, that those targeted may be "subject to threats, coercion or potential blackmail."

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

What is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books' upcoming edition of Mark Twain's seminal novel "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" will remove all instances of the "n" word -- I'll give you a hint, it's not nonesuch -- present in the text and replace it with slave.

The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it.

"Race matters in these books," Gribben told PW. "It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."

No need for an update here. These "publishers" are idiots in any time period.

BT has introduced a controversial service that some say could allow broadband providers to create a "two-tier internet".

Content Connect, as it is known, allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that use BT's network to charge content firms for high-speed delivery of video.

It could spell the end of so-called "net neutrality", where all traffic on the net is treated equally.

Of course, they will try and bullshit their way out of this...

But a spokesperson for BT denied that the offering would create a "two-tier internet".

"BT supports the concept of net neutrality, but believes that service providers should also be free to strike commercial deals, should content owners want a higher quality or assured service delivery."

It was a big mistake turning the Net over to these greedy bastards, but there you go.

Canada's top-paid chief executives only have to work until 2:30 p.m. Monday to make the same amount of money the average Canadian will earn for the entire year, a new study suggests.

The "Recession-Proof" report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) suggests the country's best-paid CEOs made an average of $6.6 million in 2009 during the darkest period of the recession. That compares to the total average Canadian income of $42,988 and the total average minimum wage worker's income of $19,877.

More "we are the greatest thing...ever" self love from the Americans...

Our greatness is simply a fact. Only the churlish or malevolent can deny it, or even get irked at its assertion. When a Marco Rubio talks of the greatness of America, it’s not bumptious self-congratulation. Our greatness comes with the responsibility to preserve our traditional dynamism and status as a robust middle-class society. To paraphrase the Benjamin Franklin of lore, we have the greatest country ever — if we can keep it.

Gays in Uganda celebrated today, after courts ruled in their favor in a case against a newspaper which called on people to hang them.

In October 2010, Rolling Stone newspaper had boldly called for gays to be hanged in one of their headlines. "Hang Them," the headline read. The ensuing story showed photos of people presumed to be gays in Uganda, and even indicated locations of their homes.

And according to gays in Uganda, the newspaper article led to some of those whose photos, names and home adresses appeared in the newspaper to be attacked and beaten up by people who claimed to be anti-gay.

But after taking the case to court and applying for damages whilst requesting for an injunction against the newspaper, a Uganda court Monday ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.